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The last year has been marked with a high degree of uncertainty for Young’s Equipment.
Like many businesses, the Saskatchewan-based farming tool retailer has had to tangle with an unpredictable environment amid trade wars and tariffs between Canada, the U.S., China and India.
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“It’s been a weird year,” said Sean Young, assistant general manager.
“Early in the year, there was a lot of talk about tariffs in the U.S., which didn’t end up directly impacting equipment coming in from the U.S., but I think just generally the tariff environment in the U.S. ultimately caused increases in the price of equipment, which is not necessarily ideal.”
Young said larger pieces of equipment sold by companies like Young’s, John Deere, New Holland Agriculture, are often manufactured in the U.S., adding that those items often have components that are manufactured outside of the U.S.
“What the actual impact of the tariffs was gets muddied but prices did increase,” he said.
“… Overall, it was a lot of uncertainty, and that just makes it more challenging for producers and makes it a little bit more challenging for us.”
Despite navigating the uncertainty, Young said that Young’s Equipment was pretty fortunate.
“We had had some pockets where guys had really, really good crops, and we had some pockets where guys had some probably average crops and kind of everything in between,” Young said.
“It varies every year, but compared to your average year … our territory probably had less bad crops than we do some years. That’s a positive again.
“Commodity prices have not been great and the tariffs on on products that the producers sell impact that as well.”
Young said China’s deal to end its counter-tariffs on Canadian canola can’t hurt the sense of optimism within the agriculture industry.
“It’s going to take some time to see how everything plays out,” he said, though he added that he hasn’t had the chance to speak with producers about it.
“My assumption is it’s not going to hurt optimism … at the end of the day, I would still be concerned because it can change at any point,” he said.
“Our industry is one where even if you completely remove that threat of tariffs, there are still concerns about weather that are there year-in and year-out and moisture and all those kinds of things.
“I think this is something that, generally, is not going to be a quick change. I don’t think this is something that’s going to flip a switch and make the ag industry completely different tomorrow. But it’s, I would say, encouraging that there’s been movement on that.”
– With files from 980 CJME’s Geoff Smith
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